Rails includes with eager loading => nested models not in to_json version? - ruby-on-rails

I have a class TwitterUser that has many TwitterLists
class TwitterUser < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :twitter_lists, :dependent => :destroy
end
When I do:
user = TwitterUser.includes(:twitter_lists).find(12615489)
then:
lists = user.twitter_lists
it eagerly loads the twitter lists for that user in the first "find", so it doesn't run a query when I do user.twitter_lists (this is expected).
However when I try to convert the user to JSON like:
user.to_json
I don't see the nested association "twitter_lists" anywhere in the JSON. Even though I used eager loading. Why is this? And how can I make it appear in the JSON?

To include the association in the output of to_json you need to pass :include => :twitter_lists to to_json
There is no connection between the associations that are eager loaded and the associations that are included in the output of to_json - the two are completely independant.

Check this answer
May be this is what you need
Rails find method - select columns from ":include" table parameter
includes is just for eager loading. Which means it is cached somewhere but not actually returned

Related

Rails - get polymorphic children from collection as ActiveRecord::Relation

I need to get all children from a parent as an ActiveRecord::Relation. Thing is, this children are stored in a polymorphic relation. In my case I need it to paginate some search results obtained with pg_search gem.
I've tried the following:
results = PgSearch.multisearch('query').map(&:searchable)
# Horrible solution, N + 1 and returns an array
docs = PgSearch.multisearch('query').includes(:searchable)
results = docs.map(&:searchable)
# Still getting an array
Also thought of things like select or pluck, but they are not intended for retrieving objects, only column data. I could try to search ids for each children type like so
Post.where(id: PgSearch.multisearch('query').where(searchable_type: "Post").select(:searchable_id)
Profile.where(id: PgSearch.multisearch('query').where(searchable_type: "Profile").select(:searchable_id)
But it doesn't scale, since I would need to do this for every object I want to obtain from a search result.
Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT
Here's some basic pseudocode demonstrating the issue:
class Profile < ApplicationRecord
has_one :search_document, :as => :searchable
end
class Post < ApplicationRecord
has_one :search_document, :as => :searchable
end
class Profile < ApplicationRecord
has_one :search_document, :as => :searchable
end
class SearchDocument < ApplicationRecord
belongs_to :searchable, plymorphic: true
end
I want to obtain all the searchable items as an ActiveRecord::Relation, so that I can dynamically filter them, in this specific case, using limit(x).offset(y)
SearchDocument.all.joins(:searchable).limit(10).offset(10)
Generates an error: cannot eagerly load searchable cause of polymorphic relation
SearchDocument.all.includes(:searchable).limit(10).offset(10)
This one does load the searchable items into memory, but does not return them in the query, instead it applies the filters to the SearchDocument items, as expected. This might be a temporary solution, to filter the search documents and then get the searchable items from them, but collides with pagination on the views.
The question here is: Is there a way I can get all searchable items as ActiveRecord::Relation to further filter them?
I'm unfamiliar with this library. However, looking at your code, I'd guess that any attempt to take a CollectionProxy and map some function over it will trigger evaluating the CollectionProxy and return an array.
Having had a quick look at the library GitHub docs, perhaps something like this might work:
post_docs = PgSearch.multisearch('query').where(searchable_type: "Post")
posts = Post.where(pg_search_document: post_docs)

eager loading not working with order() clause in rails

I am using this query to get my data
user = User.includes(:skills).order(user: :id)
it is working fine. but when i try to display skills by alphabetical order like below
user.skills.order(name: :asc)
It shows in logs that it goes in the database as order() is an activerecord method. It seems like eager loading is failing here because what's the point to use eager loading if it has to go in the database anyway.
Can anyone guide me what is a good way to do this.
When you eager load associated records using .includes, you should access the association as it is. Otherwise, if you add more query conditions to the association, that will cause a new DB query.
There are a few ways how you can order the associated eager loaded records.
1. Add order condition to the main scope.
user = User.includes(:skills).order("users.id, skills.name ASC")
In this case, it won't work like include method works by default, making two queries. One query will be performed using 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' to fetch the associated records. This is equivalent to using the eager_load method instead of includes
user = User.eager_load(:skills).order("users.id, skills.name ASC")
2. Add order condition to association when you define it.
In this case whenever you access the association, the associated records will always be ordered by name.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :skills, -> { order(:name) }
end
3. Create another association with required order for using only in this particular case.
This allows you to avoid unnecessary conditions on the main association which is skills.
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :skills_ordered_by_name, -> { order(:name) }, class_name: "Skill"
end
# usage
users = User.includes(:skills_ordered_by_name)
users.each do |user|
# access eager loaded association
user.skills_ordered_by_name
end
4. Set default order for the association model.
This will cause the condition to be applied to every association and query related to the associated model.
class Skill < ActiveRecord::Base
default_scope { order(:name) }
end
5. Sort eager loaded records using Ruby code (not ActiveRecord query methods)
This approach is appropriate when there are not many records to sort.
users = User.includes(:skills)
users.each do |user|
# sorting with Ruby's 'sort_by' method
user.skills.sort_by(&:name)
# or something like
user.skills.sort { |one, another| one.name <=> another.name }
end
You can achieve flexibility by using built-in method ActiveRecord::Associations::Preloader#preload.
It accept three arguments:
preload(records, associations, preload_scope = nil)
The first argument accepts ActiveRecord::Base record or array of records.
Second is one or more associations that you want preload to records specified in the first argument.
Last is Hash or Relation which merged with associations.
Use third argument to get sorted and preloaded associations:
users = User.order(user: :id)
ActiveRecord::Associations::Preloader.new.preload(
users,
:skills,
{ order: :name } # or Skill.order(:name)
)
You can use this:
user = User.includes(:skills).order(user: :id, name: :desc)

Active Record Association with Memcached

Hi for rails model association, i know i can do this:
For example a model class Page.
class Page < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :parts
end
I can do this:
Page.first.parts.find_by_name('body')
Page.first.parts.class actually returns Array. How can it activate methods for Part model? I found the similar post on How do rails association methods work?
My question is that when i try to use memcache to cache the response for parts methods. Then when i call Page.first.parts.find_by_name('body'), it tells me that the Array doesn't have method find_by_name. How do i solve this problem? I need to have the cache as this is one heavily used methods.
class Page
def parts_with_cache
Rails.cache.fetch("parts_for_page_#{id}", {:expires_in => 1.minutes}) do
parts_without_cache
end
end
alias_method_chain :parts, :cache
end
Since you are getting back an array of Parts objects associated to the Page object unfiltered by part name, just do an Array select method on the result set.
body_parts = Page.first.parts.select{ |part| part.name == 'body' }

Rails autosave association in controller action

I have the following one to many associations. Document has many Sections and Section has many Items.
class Document < ActiveRecord::Base
has_many :document_sections, :dependent => :destroy, :autosave => true
has_many :document_items, :through => :document_sections
end
class DocumentSection < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :document
has_many :document_items, :dependent => :destroy, :autosave => true
end
class DocumentItem < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :document_section
end
Here is the params hash:
-
Parameters: {"commit"=>"Submit Document", "authenticity_token"=>"4nx2B0pJkvavDmkEQ305ABHy+h5R4bZTrmHUv1setnc=", "id"=>"10184", "document"=>{"section"=>{"10254"=>{"seqnum"=>"3", "item"=>{"10259"=>{"comments"=>"tada"}}}}, "comment"=>"blah"}}
I have the following update method...
# PUT /documents/1
# PUT /documents/1.xml
def update
#document = Document.find(params[:id])
# This is header comment
#document.comment = params[:document][:comment]
params[:document][:section].each do |k,v|
document_section = #document.document_sections.find_by_id(k)
if document_section
v[:item].each do |key, value|
document_item = document_section.feedback_items.find_by_id(key)
if document_item
# This is item comments
document_item.comments = value[:comments]
end
end
end
end
#document.save
end
When I save the document it only updates the document header comments. It does not save the document_item comments. Shouldn't the autosave option also update the associations.
In the log only the following DML is registered:
UPDATE documents SET updated_at = TO_DATE('2010-03-09 08:35:59','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'), comment = 'blah' WHERE id = 10184
How do I save the associations by saving the document.
I think I see what the problem is. I'm pretty sure that you cannot do the following:
# Triggers a database call
document_section = #document.document_sections.find_by_id(k)
And expect ActiveRecord to keep the association for autosaves. Instead, you should save the loaded records individually. Which of course would not be atomic.
I believe for autosave to work like you are thinking, you want to do something like this:
# untested...
#document.document_sections.collect { |s| s.id == k }.foo = "bar"
Notice that here I'm actually modifying a fake param foo in the array, instead of calling find_by_id, which will re-query the database and return a new object.
A third option you have is that you could of course, do what you had originally planned, but handle all the transactions yourself, or use nested transactions, etc, to get the atmoic saves. This would be necessary if your data was too large for array manipulation to work since autosave by it's natures triggers a load of all associated data into memory.
It all depends on your application.
Some clarifications on the underlying problem:
If you run the find_by_id method, you are asking ActiveRecord to return to you a new set of objects that match that query. The fact that you executed that method from an instance (document_sections) is really just another way of saying:
DocumentSection.find_by_id(k)
Calling it from an object instance I think is just some syntactic niceness that rails is adding on the top of things, but in my mind it doesn't make a lot of sense; I think it could be handy in some application, I'm not sure.
On the other side, collect is a Ruby Array method that offers a way to "slice" an array using a block. Basically a fancy foreach loop. :) By interacting with the document_sections array directly, you are changing the same objects already loaded into the containing object (#document), which will then be committed when you save with the special autosave flag set.
HTH! Glad you are back and running. :)

How to get an eager loaded conditional to be lazy loading later on with ActiveRecord and Rails

First let me show some code.
class User
has_and_belongs_to_many :roles
named_scope :employees, { :conditions => ["roles.name = 'Employee'"], :include => :roles }
end
OK, so later in a controller I wanted to search for all the employees right. I set the named scope up to help do that with the join and conditional search. But the problem is in the view I want to show all of that users roles, but It will only display the employee role.
Is there anyway that I can say "user.roles" and have the be lazy loaded in the view after I have already eager loaded it?
The documentation for habtm (as well as has_many) states that you can access the collection with an optional parameter:
collection(force_reload = false)
Returns an array of all the associated objects. An empty array is
returned if none are found.
You can reload the roles with user.roles(true).

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